Single-stream recycling has come to my home at last…
3 minute read
September 29, 2014, 6:54 PM
So I went to take out the recycling after I got home from work today, and encountered this:
Continue reading…Categories: House
No longer a Baltimore transit virgin…
7 minute read
September 28, 2014, 1:58 PM
Two weeks ago, I went up to Baltimore with my friend Elyse. We went for the Star Spangled 200 celebration, and wandered around the city a bit. And most importantly, I rode public transportation in Baltimore for the first time. MTA Maryland is a very different beast from Metro. MTA has buses, and MTA has trains, and there’s also a Circulator-type service. But the details are quite different. Elyse and I started out at Cromwell station in Glen Burnie, which is out by BWI. That’s light rail. DC doesn’t have light rail, as you know. There’s a streetcar system coming in DC, but it’s not here yet. Then there’s a heavy rail system, i.e. the Metro Subway, which we also rode. That’s more like what I’m used to. We also rode the Charm City Circulator, which is a free bus service that travels around the city, separate from the regular MTA buses (which we didn’t get to ride). And owing to cooperation between MTA Maryland and Metro, my SmarTrip card worked in Baltimore.
Most surprising was that the fares for the light rail were basically on the honor system. You bought your ticket at the machine, and then you just got on. No faregates, no fareboxes, no nothing. In my case, I loaded an MTA pass onto my SmarTrip.
So this was what I saw on my first ride on the Baltimore Light Rail:
Categories: Baltimore, Elyse, MTA Maryland
“Fire drill in three, two, one…”
5 minute read
September 15, 2014, 10:09 PM
Back on August 1, I got together with my friend Elyse and we tested a number of different fire alarm notification appliances at her house. We had to take it to her house, because I live in an apartment, and, out of respect for my neighbors, I have a visual-only policy at my house, i.e. as many strobes as you want, but no horns. Most of the alarms that we tested were hers, though we did run a couple of mine, plus I provided the power, i.e. my Wheelock RPS-2440 24-volt power supply.
The first alarm up was a Gentex smoke alarm. I’ve seen these in person before, most notably when I stayed at the Bolger Center in Potomac for an event with a company that shall remain nameless, where there was a Gentex smoke detector in my room, next to a Wheelock ET speaker/strobe. At the time, I commented about the alarm system, “I thought about how neat it would be to see both devices in action, but the thing is, if both devices are going, you’re really screwed.” While I had since seen a Wheelock ET in action, I hadn’t seen a Gentex smoke alarm in action until this day. And here it is:
Categories: Elyse, Fire alarms
Yes, that is a Wheelock 7002T up there…
4 minute read
September 10, 2014, 7:03 PM
So as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m doing a bit of cleaning/redecorating around the house. I’ve purged the house of much junk, I’ve put pictures in the frames, and I’ve removed the bulletin board, whiteboard, and Scientology letter from the walls. Of the items removed from the walls, the bulletin board got moved to the kitchen, and the Scientology letter is going back up somewhere else in the house, but I’m not entirely sure where yet, as I still have to figure out the master decor plan. I gave the whiteboard away, and I’m told it ultimately ended up at the American Legion in Wheaton.
But I did put a new piece of decor up that is very relevant to my interests: a Wheelock 7002T. This came about after my friend Elyse referred me to an eBay auction where someone was selling two Wheelock 7002T horn/strobes that had been completely gutted, marketed as wall decor. The opening price was ridiculously low, and there were no other bidders. In a word: mine. The idea was to get these, dig up some trim plates, and then put them up on the wall. This only worked because they were empty. Without the guts, they were light enough to where if I put one up, I wouldn’t have to worry about their falling off of the wall on account of weight, and also, there was nothing protruding out of the back, which meant that it would go flat against the wall.
This is what I started with:
Categories: Fire alarms, House
Google Camera is my new favorite toy…
5 minute read
September 6, 2014, 12:38 PM
I recently went on a trip down to Stuarts Draft to see my parents and sister, as well as my sister’s friend Vickey, and I came armed with a new app for my Android device: Google Camera. If you’ve never used it before, Google Camera is a camera app that will function as a regular camera plus do a few other things. Besides shooting regular still photos and videos, it will also do a lens blur effect, it helps in shooting panoramic photos, and it also shoots “photo spheres”, also called “spherical panoramas”. That last one is what I took for a spin on this trip. Those are the ones that I can post on Panoramio, and I believe that they go in as Street View (but don’t quote me on that just yet, because they haven’t fully propagated to Google Maps/Earth as of this writing).
Shooting them is surprisingly easy. Here’s a screenshot of the app in action, taking a photo sphere at my place:
Categories: Blue Ridge Parkway, Photography, Roanoke, Staunton, Virginia